


despite everything

by simplycarryon



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 17:01:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4969060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplycarryon/pseuds/simplycarryon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You do not begin as friends, but you refuse to let that stop you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	despite everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feralphoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/gifts).



> continued dabbling in the au where frisk and chara have separate bodies. i assume if you're reading this you've already finished the game, if not, what are you doing here? go do that.
> 
> a birthday gift for feral!

The air that drifts from the shop door is yeasty and warm, thick with cinnamon and brown sugar and the not-too-distant promise of a full stomach.

You can barely see over the shop counter, and you end up mushing your face into the edge while trying to pull yourself up high enough to see what might be causing such a wonderful smell. When the shopkeeper notices you standing on your tiptoes, she laughs and tilts a tray so you can see its contents better, showing off gleaming sugar-encrusted rows of bunny-shaped treats.

Your mouth waters.

A handful of the coins that have been jangling in your pockets since the ruins go towards purchasing two hot cinnamon buns, wrapped in waxed paper and tucked neatly into a crinkly paper bag. You rejoin Chara outside the shop and sit gingerly in the snow with them, passing them one of the buns; the other one you ease out of its wrapping with a sense of reverence, careful not to damage it, and you let it warm your hands as you admire the shape of the ears and the tiny tuft of tail made out of dough.

“Eat it while it’s still hot,” Chara says impatiently, nudging you with an elbow to stir you from your bunny-eared reverie. “Come on, Frisk.”

“But it’s so cute,” you protest.

Chara locks eyes with you and takes an enormous bite out of their bun, as if daring you to try to spare the perfectly good food you just paid for.

You consider it, but the steamy scent of cinnamon is overpowering; after a moment, you pull a fold of dough loose and pop it in your mouth. The sugar crunches between your teeth, the buttery dough all but melts on your tongue, and you stare at it in amazement and take another bite almost before you’ve finished the first. You try to pace yourself, you really do, but you’ve been walking for hours in the snow and this is the best thing that’s happened to you since… well.

You try not to think about the heavy stone door in the ruins.

You wish you could have stayed.

It’s Chara that breaks you from that thought, wadding up their emptied square of waxed paper and tossing it aside, and then licking their fingers with a determination that makes you snort.

“What?” Chara asks, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not gonna waste it.”

You think about that for a minute, and then shrug. There’s a truth to their words that you can’t deny, so you stuff the last bite of cinnamon bun into your face and proceed to follow their example.

 

 

Waterfall is beautiful, in an eerily empty sort of way; you’re a little glad to have Chara along even if they keep messing with the echo flowers.

“Santa Claus isn’t real,” they inform the nearest flower, which immediately begins whispering the words in a watery approximation of their voice, bubbling the message to the neighboring flowers until the sound of it fills the room almost to bursting.

 _“Chara,”_ you say, mostly appalled, slightly amused. “Those are people’s _wishes._ ”

“Not any more,” Chara says, kicking a pebble at the first flower. “They’re mine now. Besides, it’s not like anyone comes through here these days.”

“Someone might.”

“Heh, yeah. Maybe Papyrus,” they suggest with a grin. You shake your head and proceed to the next room, rustling through a field of echo flowers just waiting to shatter some poor skeleton’s dreams.

 

 

You’ve never seen a statue look so lonely before.

Time and weather have worn away its features, carved stone giving way to mossy, rain-pitted surfaces. You think you can make out a pair of horns—or ears maybe?—and you’re sorely tempted to clean it as best you can, maybe sacrifice a bit of your already-dusty tutu to scrub the moss away—

 _“Don’t,”_ Chara says quickly, harshly, as you reach out to touch it. 

You jerk your hand back, your heart skipping a terrified beat at the raw emotion in their voice. You’ve never heard them so angry, so hurt.

Maybe you look as afraid as you feel, because Chara’s face fades from fiercely distraught to what almost seems like guilt. 

“Sorry,” they add, after a moment, their gaze coming to rest somewhere near your shoes. “I didn’t—just—please don’t.”

“Is this… someone you knew?” you venture. You wish they’d tell you anything about themself, anything beyond their name, because so far all you have to go on are the fragments you can collect when they talk about things.

Chara shoves past you into the next room, reminiscent of a storm.

You give them a few minutes alone.

When you join them, you find them sitting against the wall, their knees pulled up to their chest. There’s a bucket of umbrellas nearby, lying on its side; you wonder if it was always like that or if the Chara-shoe-sized indentation in the side is a new addition.

“I’m sorry,” you offer, knowing they probably don’t care. “I shouldn’t pry.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t,” Chara says, sniffling, wiping their nose with the back of their hand. They don’t offer anything further, and you sit quietly with them, letting the sound of the nearby waterfall cover up further sniffling noises.

Eventually, they break the relative silence.

“We should get going.”

“... Are you okay?”

That gets a mirthless laugh out of them, and they swipe at their eyes with one sleeve. “I haven’t been okay for a long time. Let’s just get out of here, alright? I’m tired of all this dumb water.”

You nod, and get up, and offer them a hand. They don’t take it—they haven’t let you help them at all this far—but you think maybe things are some kind of okay, now.

Chara retrieves two umbrellas from the bucket, tossing one to you and opening the other with a practiced flick. “You’ll want this for the next room, unless you want everything you own getting soggy.”

You open your own umbrella, looking up at the red canopy that blossoms over your head, and you remember the statue in the other room sitting alone in the quiet underground weather.

You motion for Chara to wait, and with their gaze burning against your back, you approach the statue softly. It’s still the loneliest sight you can think of, but you prop your umbrella up over its head, positioning it so that the worst of the rain is deflected.

It looks a little less lonely, now.

As if in reply, something begins echoing from deep within the statue—a series of notes from a music box that strike you as unerringly, breathlessly familiar. It’s quiet, delicate, but it rings true, filling you with a sense of purpose.

You turn back to Chara to find them sobbing soundlessly.

 

 

They share their umbrella with you, holding it out just enough that it half-covers you both.

From Chara, you’re pretty sure that means a lot.

 

 

The hotel in Hotland is a welcome reprieve from the heat of the core, and you’re tempted to jump in the Mettaton-adorned fountain. You would, too, if you weren’t _really tired_ of Mettaton.

You have just enough cash between the two of you to split a room. It’s expensive, and Chara squawks indignantly when the concierge mentions the going rate, but the thought of sleeping in a real bed and maybe even getting to take a bath and scrub the stink of smoke out of your hair is enough to convince you to fork over the cash.

Chara mutters something about highway robbery, and slaps their money down next to yours with a particular ferocity. Thankfully, nobody seems to think twice about renting a room to two small children with wads of cash, and a particularly cheerful bellmonster whisks you off to a corridor on the right and passes you your key.

You find yourselves in a room with the biggest bed you’ve ever seen in your life.

“Holy _shit,"_ Chara says eloquently.

You can’t help but agree. 

You squirm under the tucked-tight covers, appreciating the cooling effect of the silky sheets against your too-hot skin. The bed could probably fit twenty of you, and you’re a little puzzled as to why it needs to be _this big_ , but you decide to revel in the fact that it is and roll around under the sheets.

Chara joins you, a moment later, nearly rolling right over you, and you laugh and roll away. It turns into a game of chase, them rolling determinedly after you, their face set in a look of mischievous delight.

Eventually, you roll out of the bed and sprawl on the floor, and Chara tumbles out on top of you with a grin. They’re warm, but not uncomfortably so, and their weight against your back is oddly comforting.

“I win?” is less of a statement and more of a question. 

You grin back and push them off of you.

 

 

This place feels familiar, mostly when you close your eyes. Oh, you know it’s a replica of Toriel’s home in the ruins—you’ve heard from about a thousand different sources how sentimental King Dreemurr is, and it comes as no surprise that Home II is the same as Home, down to the furnishings and the faint smell of baked goods and fire magic.

But mostly, you feel like you’ve been _here_ before, standing in this house, walking through these rooms.

You and Chara move through the house together. You find a key in the kitchen while poking around in the drawers, and Chara complains about the lack of chocolate in the fridge before you move on, past the chair and the fireplace and the stairs going down, into the hallway that leads to your room. Or what would be your room, you amend briefly, if you were in Toriel’s home.

Chara hesitates in the process of opening the door, their hand trembling as they reach for the handle. You don’t ask—you doubt they’d tell you if you did—but you reach out, slowly, and put a gentle hand on their shoulder.

You can feel them shaking.

 

 

The locket fits in the well of their hand, heart-shaped against their tiny scarred palm.

“He kept it,” is all you can make out, before their voice wavers, then cracks. “After all this time.”

You kneel beside them, giving them plenty of warning before you put an arm around their shoulders. They’re crying, now, tears splashing hot and heavy on the surface of the locket, and they shudder a little under the weight of their terrible sadness, leaning desperately into your one-armed hug like you’re the only thing keeping them afloat.

 

 

The lab is dark, and cold, and you could swear the shadows at the edges of your vision keep moving along with you. It’s hard to make anything out in the low grimy light, though, and you edge closer to Chara, trying not to look as terrified as you feel.

You have to be brave. For Alphys, for Undyne, for Sans and Papyrus and Asgore and Toriel. 

Chara glances at you, the deep shadows under their eyes shaping their face into something haunted. They look—tired. Worn. You have to be brave for them, too, you decide, though the noble thought does nothing to assuage your growing panic.

You almost miss their movements, in the low light. They reach for you, slowly—you think for a moment that they are trying not to startle you—and then their hands move up, over your head, and down around your neck.

A gentle warmth settles against your chest, and you reach up to cup Chara’s heart-shaped locket in one hand, stunned at the weight of such a precious object.

“Come on, Frisk,” Chara says, offering you a hand. “We got this.”

You stare at them for a moment, the space of a breath, and then you fit your free hand into theirs. Courage surges in your chest; you can feel your mind clear, feel the terror lift from your shoulders.

Chara gives you a tiny smile, the corners of their mouth tilting upward just a fraction. It’s a real smile, though, and you can tell that even in the dim lighting of the lab.

The sight of it fills you with determination.


End file.
